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| The Daily Times. February 1, 1909. |
In February 1909,
the Davenport Daily Times talked with Dr. A. L. Hageboeck,
who’d seen something few Americans could imagine—an airplane in flight.
Hageboeck
had spent three days in Le Mans, France, watching Wilbur Wright fly, and what
he saw left him shaken.
He said the
real secret of the Wright brothers’ success was simple, almost too simple. The
canvas wings of the machine could be tilted up or down at either end, allowing
the pilot to adjust to the wind—just like a bird shifting its wings in flight.
That one
idea changed everything.
He said
Wilbur Wright wasn’t polished or impressive in the usual sense. He was
thirty-five years old, tall, awkward, and quiet. There was nothing graceful
about him. He barely spoke.
